27 Oct 24 - All REV'ed Up

I had thought I had updated my mobile so that it wouldn't automatically change the clock for the end of British Summer Time, so the pre-dawn alarm went off at the correct time. That didn't work and the phone's alarm went off as it was starting to get light. By the time I had finished my breakfast, I realised I wouldn't be able to cover the St Aldhelms patch as thoroughly as I had planned before my 13:00 WeBS count at Brands Bay. I decided on Plan B: to head to Durlston for a few hours in the hope of a stripy-warbler. My departure time changed rapidly when I got a text saying Red-eyed Vireo trapped at Durlston & will be released at 08:15. That was in fourteen minutes time. Fortunately, the Durlston car park is about eight minutes drive away from my house and the release point was by the old info centre, which is right next to the car park. I picked up my coat, bins & camera and arrived in time to see Poole Ringer, Ian Lewis, walking happily towards where the only local Birder, Rob Johnson, was standing. With no sign of the Durlston ex-warden and only other Birder on site, Hamish Murray, Ian produced my first Dorset Red-eyed Vireo.

Red-eyed Vireo: An unexpected Dorset Tick on my doorstep

This is only the sixth Dorset record of a Red-eyed Vireo and the commonest American Passerine seen in Dorset over the years:

• Portland Bill (23-24 Sep 23)

• Portland Bill (14 Oct 16)

• Littlesea, The Fleet (10 Oct 1995)

• Southwell, Portland (3-5 Oct 1988)

• Hengistbury Head (12 Oct 1987).

Red-eyed Vireo

Ian released the Red-eyed Vireo in the bushes by the car park. We saw it briefly perched in one of the trees, before diving into cover. I expected that would be the last we would see of it. Trapped & released Birds tend to disappear after being released. Albeit they sometimes remain in the area, as they pop up again in mist nets a day or two later. After about fifteen minutes, I tried some pishing and saw a bird with a big creamy supercilium near the top of the nearest Sycamore. It was too brief a sighting to see any other features, as it was skulking well inside the leaves, but it looked promising. I put Rob onto the area. Another round of pishing & it popped up and gave a clear enough view to confirm it was the Red-eyed Vireo: phew. Fortunately, Rob also got onto it, but it was too concealed for a photo. Thirty minutes later, we saw some Blue Tits appear and while watching them, again picked up a very skulky Bird deep in the leaves. I saw it fly & then relocated it sitting right in the open on a bare branch. I quickly called the directions to the small group of locals present as I raised the camera. Fortunately, everybody in the small group there got onto it & it remained long enough for some photos.

Red-eyed Vireo

Red-eyed Vireo

Red-eyed Vireo: It's that stare again

Red-eyed Vireo: A photo from a later sighting that morning

Over the rest of the morning, it showed about eight times for the slowly increasing group of Birders. Finally, at lunchtime, I had to call it a day as I needed a quite bite before I headed off for my WeBS count. It had been a great morning, especially given the almost complete absence of American Passerines in the UK this Autumn.

The twitch ninety minutes after it was released: If only more twitches were this low key

11 Oct 24 - Fat Pigeons

I'm sure I'm not the only Birder who rarely looks at Woodpigeons properly during most of the year. But they are good-looking Pigeons and if they were rare, then we would probably be more impressed with them. But today I decided to take some photos of them as I saw a few posing in the trees at Durlston.

Woodpigeon

Woodpigeon

However, it is getting close to time when Woodpigeons get a brief few weeks of interest from South coast Birders as large flocks gather together before moving to the coast & at some point, heading out to sea. They will winter in Southern France & Central Spain. What is surprising is we don't see these Woodpigeons returning during the following Spring. Normally, the Woodpigeons depart at the end of Oct and early Nov. However, there were over three thousand moving over St Aldhelms on 13 Oct 24, typically in flocks of one of two hundred. It looks like the movement is starting early this Autumn.

Woodpigeon: Woodpigeons on the move over Rempstone Forest (10 Nov 13)

24 Oct 24 - Happy Eleventh Birthday & 1000th Blog Post

Just over eleven years ago, I treated myself to a decent DSLR camera and 400mm lens. I was heading out to the Andaman Islands and South & North West India at the end of 2013 and I wanted to start photographing some of the Birds and other Wildlife on the trip. To address the problem of where to put the photos, I started this Blog and this is the 1000th Blog Post on the Blog's eleventh birthday.

A big reason to create the Blog was to have somewhere that I could easily look back on my photos & remember Birding trips. I have an offline back of all the Blog Posts in word documents and recently, I've been flicking through these Word documents as I stared to prepare to write this milestone Blog Post. There is an excellent range of Blog Posts covering a lot of UK and overseas Birds, Cetaceans and other Wildlife especially, Mammals, Butterflies & Dragonflies. There are a lot of surprisingly OK photos in these Blog Posts, with plenty of useful ID tips thrown in along the way. In the last eleven years I've travelled to:

• Holland (2013)

• The Andaman Islands and India (2013/14)

• Morocco & Western Sahara (2014)

• Israel (2014)

• Croatia (2014)

• Pitcairn, Henderson Island & French Polynesia (2014)

• California (2014)

• Turkey (2015)

• Finland (2016)

• Ireland (2016, 2022 & 2024)

• Colombia (2018)

• Chile (2018)

• Argentina, South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha, Ascension Island, Cape Verde to Holland (2018)

• Indonesian: Banda Sea, the Moluccas, Bali & Java (2022)

• Argentina, the Falklands, South Georgia & Antarctica (2023)

• New Zealand, Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, the Solomons & Japan (2023)

• Angola (2023)

• Tenerife, the Lesser Antilles and Spain (2024)

• Plus, many ORCA survey trips to France and Spain.

I've still got over fifty thousand photos (& four hundred GBs) of photos to still to sort out. This could easily keep me going for a year or two until I've finally cleared that backlog. Therefore, there are still lots of interesting Blog Posts still to write. For now, I will look to the start of the next thousand Blog Posts with a few tasters of photos to come: I hope you enjoy them. So, instead of looking back on the first 999 Blog Posts, I will look back on some of the recent foreign trips and look forward to some of the species coming in the next thousand Blog Posts.

The Lady Denok in the early evening light off Nustabun Island, Tanimbar (28 Oct 22)

Firstly, I've written up the Blog Posts for the fantastic Bird Tour Asia trip to the Banda Sea. This was an excellent run trip with lots of happy memories. The trip started as I arrived in Indonesia and headed East to meet the others in the Tanimbar Islands. After a clean-up of the Tanimbar endemics, we boarded the Lady Denok to travel through the ultra-remote Banda Sea islands with many superb Birds and Cetaceans, Flying Fish and a few Sea Turtles. There are too many excellent species to mention, so you will just have to read the Blog Posts.

Melon-headed Whale: This is my favourite photo from the Banda Sea tour. At sea between Leti & Wetar, Indonesia (4 Nov 22)

I had an overnight trip to Kuala Lumpur which allowed me to renew my visa before flying out to Ternate for the start of the second of my back to back Bird Tour Asia trips. This was their Remote Moluccas tour. The only major island we didn't go Birding on was Halmahera, which wasn't a problem as I had previously visited Halmahera back in 1991. This was an excellent run trip with lots of happy memories. I still need to start sorting the photos from this tour, but I will leave you with a couple of photos. I can thoroughly recommend using Bird Tour Asia for Birding tours in Asia.

Moluccan Scops Owl: Buru, Indonesia (30 Nov 22)

A mating pair of Obi Golden Tree Frogs: Obi, Indonesia (19 Nov 22)

I had some unfinished locations from the 1991 trips to Indonesia where Keith Turner & I visited all the main islands across the archipelago, as well as, parts of West Papua. But we were foiled in North Bali where Bali Starling was critically threatened with extinction & the Bali Barat National Park was closed. Fortunately, the population is looking a lot more healthy now and it is possible to visit the area and Bali Myna and Javan Banded Pitta can be seen.

Javan Banded Pitta: Bali Barat, Bali, Indonesia (7 Dec 22)

My first day of Birding was so successful, that we rejigged the plans and spent the second day of private guiding enjoying a bonus visit to see White-faced Partridge in Java. A great way to end the seven weeks of Birding in Indonesia and with no major food problems. That was until an eight day bout of salmonella kicked when the flight was about three hours out of Heathrow. After getting over the salmonella, I had about three weeks before I was off again in early Jan 2023. This time to Argentina and a trip to my final continent, Antarctica. I've already written the Blog Posts for a few days of Birding in Argentina and the Falklands.

Hourglass Dolphin: At sea between the Falklands and South Georgia (18 Jan 23)

I still need to sorting the photos from South Georgia and Antarctica. This was one of my most enjoyable foreign trips with some great company and wildlife. I still need to sort out most of the photos, but these King Penguins are one of my all-time favourite photos.

King Penguins: St Andrews Bay, South Georgia (22 Jan 23)

Only a few weeks after I got back from Antarctica, I was on the move again. This time on my third trip to New Zealand. There were very few Ticks left for me on the main islands, but three of them were Kiwis: South Island Brown Kiwi on Stewart Island, Okarito Brown Kiwi and Great Spotted Kiwi. They varied from easy, a good chance of seeing them if the weather was OK to very difficult, respectively. I got lucky after checking out a rustling just off the track which I stumbled on what proved to be my final Kiwi species. Overall, my favourite sighting in New Zealand were my second views of the gorgeous and friendly Hector's Dolphins in South Island's Marlborough Sound.

Hector's Dolphin: These lovely Hector’s Dolphins are used to the boat and often pop over to see it. Marlborough Sound, New Zealand (17 Mar 23)

Next, it was on to Auckland for the Heritage Expeditions West Pacific Odyssey from New Zealand to Japan. I was looking forward to this expedition ship, but I had been forewarned about the likely problems with this company by a mate who had travelled with them pre-covid, where promised landings in Japan were cancelled as they hadn't arranged landing permissions. The company refused to refund the landing fees or compensate for these problems. I will go into the full details of the problems we experienced with Heritage Expeditions & how they tried to cover up C19 on the ship when I write the Blog Posts. They failed to manage it once news was out about the cover up, whilst allowing landings to continue in the Solomons, despite not testing the passengers for C19 and thus exposing the islanders to risks of infection. The same had happened in New Caledonia, but the passengers weren't aware of the cover up at that stage and no precautions were in place. Heritage Expeditions failure to tackle & control C19, meant we were not allowed to land on Truk in Micronesia, which was one of the main reasons I signed up for the trip. Following on from this we were banned from all the Japanese island landings by our C19 status. To compensate for all these cockups, Heritage Expeditions refunded two hundred US dollars, which was only part of the landing fees we had paid for Truk and the Japanese islands, pretended it was a goodwill gesture and then told us we had to spend it on the ship before we left or we would lose it. Heritage Expeditions refused to compensate the passengers for all the problems of the ship, other than to offer us the chance on another cruise with them. I am one of a number of passengers who wouldn't touch this company again with a bargepole. I certainly wouldn't recommend anybody else booking with them, which is a shame as I have good memories of travelling with Rodney Russ in 2001 to the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. But the current company management is very different to Rodney's hands on style.

Kagu: This is a major family for Bird Family Listers. However, it can be easily seen on a package holiday from Brisbane & without the short time pressures we endured. Keith Turner & I nearly cleaned up in about four days of Birding on the island. On the Heritage Expeditions trip, we were rushed out of the excellent National Park, so we could spent another thirty minutes or more Birding in piss-poor secondary habitat at the edge of Riviere Bleue Park. All of our landings were shorter than promised in the brochure and sometimes in the previous day's briefing. New Caledonia (26 Mar 23)

While I was in New Zealand, I got offered a place with mates Phil Hansbro and Richard Carden on a private tour of Angola run by their pal Niall Perrins in June 23. This was a great trip where we saw all the Angolan endemic species. I've already written up all of this trip on the Blog starting with the first day and ending at the stunning scenery on the Tundavala Escarpment.

Tundavala Escarpment, Angola: Some of my most memorable days is Birding around escarpments like this in Africa and the days here were the highlight of the trip for me (1 Jul 23)

Since I got back from Angola, I've been focusing on a building project on my cottage, with lots of local Birding and ferry survey trips for ORCA and Marinelife to France, Spain and the Channel Isles. But I also was offered a place in a team of four ORCA surveyors on a Saga cruise from Pompey to Tenerife, eight landings in the Lesser Antilles and North Spain. This was a working trip where we were surveying every day for the full time at sea, except for meal breaks. In addition to the surveying, there was a lot of passenger engagement with the delightful passengers on the ship who would spent part of each day on the top deck with us, enjoying the Cetaceans, Seabirds, Flying Fish and a few elusive Sea Turtles.

Sowerby's Beaked Whale: My Cetacean highlight & Tick on the Saga Caribbean Calypso whilst we were at sea off the Bay of Biscay (20 Jan 24)

Once we got to the Lesser Antilles, we enjoyed daily runs ashore on Grenada, Barbados, Martinique, St Lucia, Bequia, Dominique, Nevis and Antigua. When there were Ticks for me on the islands, I headed out in chartered taxis where I managed to see most of the potential Ticks. I will start posting the Blog Posts for this trip in the near future.

Purple-throated Carib: St Lucia (2 Feb 24)

Martinique Anole: I photographed this Martinique endemic in the Botanical Gardens, Martinique (1 Feb 24)

Hopefully there will be plenty of other interesting Blog Posts from local Birding, survey trips with ORCA and Marinelife, as well as, hopefully more ORCA surveying trips on Saga cruises and some future foreign trips that I still want to do. It should be an interesting next thousand Blog Posts. I hope you continue to enjoy reading these Blog Posts.

15 Oct 24 - A Hermitage Of Thrushes

When I checked if there was a collective name for Thrushes, I found it was a Hermitage of Thrushes: hence the title of this Blog Post. A Ring Ouzel had been found visiting a Rowan tree on the Middlebere track on Saturday 12 Oct 24. The Ring Ouzel was only making occasional short visits to the Rowan tree. I deliberately avoided the area over the weekend thinking that too many waiting local Birders & Toggers over the weekend were keeping its appearances brief and occasional. However, by the Tuesday morning, I thought it should be fairly quiet along the track. It was a reasonable day, albeit overcast, so the light wasn't great.

The Rowan tree

I arrived to find three other people present. The Ring Ouzel had put in a single early appearance, but nothing in the ninety minutes since. I settled down to wait. There was a good selection of other Thrushes and Blackbirds dropping in every now & then to feed on the Rowan berries.

Mistle Thrush

Mistle Thrush

Mistle Thrush

Mistle Thrush

Song Thrush

Song Thrush

Blackbird: Male

Blackbird: First Year Male

Blackbird: Female

Bullfinch: First Year Male

After about an hour, the Ring Ouzel appeared very briefly and was see by an elderly couple. But it was in the lower left of the tree and out of sight for me and the other local Birder, Brian. This couple left soon after and we shuffled up into a better position. Another twenty minutes later it reappeared in the same part of the tree & I managed to get some photos in the minute or two it was present. After a further twenty minute wait, it reappeared and posed for another batch of photos. But after a couple of minutes in the tree, it was gone again.

Ring Ouzel: Female

Ring Ouzel: Female

Ring Ouzel: Female

Ring Ouzel: Female. It clearly hadn't been told about stuffing all its food into its mouth in one go

Ring Ouzel: Female. A quick swallow & the berry was gone

Ring Ouzel: Female. A quick scoffing of berries & it was ready to depart

I gave it another thirty minutes, but there were no more sightings. I decided to carry onto the hide as the tide was starting to drop. There were a few showy Chiffchaffs around the farm buildings.

Chiffchaff

Chiffchaff

There were 208 Avocets and 711 Black-tailed Godwits roosting on the mud, along with good numbers of Teal, Wigeon and some Pintail. After a while, a sub-adult male Marsh Harrier appeared. For the next hour and a half it patrolled over the marsh and occasionally it came closer to the hide. At one point, it clearly caught something as it was perched for about twenty minutes feeding, before resuming the patrolling.

Marsh Harrier: Sub-adult Male

Marsh Harrier: Sub-adult Male

Marsh Harrier: Sub-adult Male

Marsh Harrier: Sub-adult Male

9 Oct 24 - Up Close & Personal

During the early afternoon while I was volunteering on the Dorset Wildlife Trust reserve, I spent some time at the DWT gazebo with one of the other volunteers, where we were meeting & greeting visitors to the reserve. I saw a group of visitors looking at something just off the main track on the reserve. A few minutes later, this gorgeous young & tame Sika Deer appeared by the gazebo. Clearly, this was what the visitors had been watching.

Sika Deer: Initially, the Sika Deer was checking us out

After a minute or so, the Sika Deer popped out of the Bracken for some better photos.

Sika Deer: I think this is the closest I've ever been to a Sika Deer

Sika Deer

Soon after this, the Sika Deer decided to continue on its way.

9 Oct 24 - Hiding Nuts

One of the best areas to see Red Squirrels on Brownsea is the bank behind the church. This area is on the National Trust side of the island and it can be seen from the Dorset Wildlife Trust gazebo. It is an area I keep an eye on when I'm on meet and greet duties at the gazebo, to see if there are any Red Squirrels active in the area. If so, I'm often pointing them out to our visitors. Part of the reason why the Red Squirrels are so active in this area, is visiting photographers often put out nuts on fallen trees at the top of the bank to encourage the Red Squirrels to appear for their photos. The DWT team do not approve of this activity, but as the photographers are not on the DWT reserve, then this isn't anything do to ask them to stop.

Red Squirrel: This Red Squirrel had just buried a nut, but was having a look around the neighbouring leaves

Red Squirrel: They are remarkably well camouflaged against the fallen leaves

Red Squirrel

On this occasion, the photographer with the bag of nuts was standing by the main track, so it was possible to wander over to take a few photographs on this tree stump.

Red Squirrel

After three weeks off Brownsea, due to ORCA surveys to Santander and the Scillies, followed by the Pale-legged Warbler twitch, it was good to see the Red Squirrels again.

Red Squirrel: Another nut which will be carried away to be buried